Kannur: Like movie buffs milling around theatres during a film festival, a crowd began gathering around Gandhi Park in the heart of Payyannur town well before 4 pm. By 4.30 pm, when CPM whistleblower V Kunhikrishnan arrived to launch his self-published book 'Nethruthwathe Anikal Thiruthanam' (The Rank Should Correct the Leadership), the park was already packed. A disinterested police officer deployed at the venue for security, following a High Court order, claimed there were only around 500 people. 

As the event began, the organisers, Jagratha Payyannur, brought 1,000 copies of the book. After political commentator Joseph C Mathew formally released the book, people surged towards the two counters selling the book, priced at ₹100 but sold at ₹70, like it was tickets for some blockbuster. There was push and shove and jumping of queues. Within moments, 1,000 copies were sold out, and the organisers brought in another 1,500 copies. By the close of the two-hour event, all the books had been sold.

Gandhi Park witnessed an extraordinary turnout, considering there was no mobilisation. Conservatively, between 1,700 and 2,000 people packed the grounds. Many in the crowd said they would react after reading the book. But the mood was unmistakable: disappointment and anger towards the party, and a sense that something long suppressed was finally being spoken aloud.

Kunhikrishnan, a CPM Kannur district committee member, was expelled from the party after he went public with allegations of financial misappropriation in the Payyannur party. His claims, backed by documents, proved difficult for the party to ignore. Judging by the turnout at Gandhi Park, his revelations -- targeting Payyannur MLA T I Madhusoodanan and the party’s State leadership -- appear to have shaken the party’s grassroots.

His allegations centre on three funds: those raised for the family of slain party worker C V Dhanraj, for constructing the Payyannur area committee office, and for the 2021 Assembly election campaign. “Even after spending heavily on mobilisation, M V Govindan’s Payyannur rally two days ago did not see a crowd like this,” said a CITU State committee member from a hill panchayat in Kannur district. “This is people’s anger against corruption,” said the upright trade union leader, requesting anonymity. 

Comrades travelled from as far as Kozhikode, Vadakara and Thalassery to attend the event. Many declined to speak on camera, but their presence was telling. “If this decay is not reversed, the party will not survive in Kerala,” said R Krishnan, a CPM member from Kozhikode. Among the crowd was wedding and wildlife photographer Damu Sargam from Korom in Payyannur.

Every year, as part of the festival at Sree Kudakkath Kottanachery Temple in Vellur, the DYFI organises a photo exhibition, and Damu’s work routinely features. This year, he mounted a solo exhibition of 60 photographs, mostly village scenes.

“It was inaugurated on Tuesday morning,” he said. “By evening, the party called the DYFI and asked them to shut it down because I support Kunhikrishnan.” The exhibition was closed within 12 hours. That did not deter him from attending the book launch.

Eighty-year-old C K Devika, Kunhikrishnan’s neighbour in Vellur, was also present. She said she had voted for leaders such as M V Raghavan, Pinarayi Vijayan and P.K. Sreemathi. “But we have not seen an MLA like T I Madhusoodanan,” she said, not hiding her disappointment. “I trust Kunhikrishnan.”

A party worker from Payyannur’s Kara division, where a rebel candidate won, and the LDF fell to third place in the December local body polls, was blunter. Madhusoodanan, he said, was an “Innova MLA”. “He goes only as far as his Innova can take him.”

The crowd was overwhelmingly made up of ideologically committed CPM supporters, most of them elderly. Young faces were absent. Janardhanan K V, a party worker from Panapuzha in Madhamangalam, a CPM bastion, explained why. “Youngsters have a transactional relationship with the party. They know how to extract benefits. It is people like us, who got nothing and still believe in ideology, who are here.”

In his speech, Kunhikrishnan said he wanted the Left Democratic Front to return to power in 2026 but warned that the party risked repeating the implosion witnessed in West Bengal. “Today, the Left Front’s vote share, not the party's, has shrunk to around six per cent in Bengal,” he said.

He said he had examined the three funds, and found irregularities in all of them. “If there had been just one irregularity, it could have been dismissed as a mistake,” he said. “But when questions arise repeatedly, they cannot be brushed aside.” He named MLA T I Madhusoodanan as responsible for all three funds.

Referring to disciplinary action against former State committee member, Karshaka Sanghom leader and former Taliparamba MLA C K P Padmanabhan in 2012, Kunhikrishnan pointed to what he described as an inconsistency in punishment.

“For an alleged accounting lapse, he was removed from all party posts without any explanation. Many comrades questioned it,” he said, contrasting it with the party’s present reluctance to act despite evidence of financial misappropriation.

Kunhikrishnan said he waited five years for the party to address these issues internally. “There was no effect. That is why I stepped outside the party structure. I have explained this clearly in the book,” he said, rejecting criticism that his intervention would benefit political rivals. “Should that fear silence us?”

“The CPM runs on people’s money,” he said. “When questions arise about party funds, the leadership should convince the people and the branches. If even a martyr’s fund is misappropriated, who will save the party?”

The loudest roar from the crowd came when he alleged that Payyannur councillor K P Madhu, a nominee of Madhusoodanan, siphoned money from the Dhanraj fund and challenged him to take the matter to court.

Kunhikrishnan said his book contained detailed accounts. “The district secretary said he would release the accounts in three days. I fear they may now prepare fresh accounts based on my numbers and circulate them down the line. I earnestly hoped they would release the figures before my book came out,” he said.

He ended with a challenge. “I am ready for an open public debate. This is a plea. Be it T I Madhusoodanan or anyone the party designates, time and place of their choice. I know the numbers by heart and am convinced there has been financial fraud.” The crowd applauded, long and loud.